Card Sharks

  "You know something, Miss Davis, you ought to leave that chip on your shoulder at home. I'm sorry if I've offended you, but I've never worked with you before."

  "You do this field testing with every new agent the bureau sends out, Chief?"

  "Yeah, Miss Davis. As a matter of fact, I do." His dark eyes glared at her from under the rim of his helmet, challenging her. You gotta work with him ... Hannah could feel the tension in her jaws. She relaxed the muscles, forced herself to give the man a half-smile even though she didn't believe him. Reiger probably didn't call the other agents by their last name - they'd be "Pat" or "Hugh" or "Bob" - and she doubted that he called any woman "Ms."

  "I'm sorry," she said, hating the words. "I guess I flew off the handle a little." She hated even more the fact that her apology and the smile - as she had known it would - melted the Chiefs irritation.

  "It's not a problem," he said. "I don't treat you any differently than anyone else. I just want you to understand that."

  Right. "I understand, Chief." She smiled again to take the edge off the words, and the man nodded. He gave her a fatherly clap on the shoulder.

  "Great. Then I think you should look over here. I think we've found where he broke in ..."

  ***

  "Here's some more tracks-alongside the door."

  "I'll be right there, Pete."

  By late afternoon, the interior had been sketched and photographed. The victims had been tagged, field-examined, and removed. Evidence had been bagged and sealed and marked.

  Everything about this fire was ugly. The firesetter, whoever it was, hadn't bothered to hide the arson. He - almost all arsonists were male - had entered through a basement window: Reiger had been right about that. All the windows were stained black with smoke except for one shattered pane on the floor - the glass was still clean, which meant that it was down before the fire. He'd set plants, material to start the initial fire, in the basement under each door of the church and in several other places along the walls. A trailer of oiled cotton rope had gone between each of the plants - Hannah had found an uncharred piece near the window where the torch had entered. The plants themselves were a potpourri of whatever the arsonist could find in the basement: votive candles, paper, cardboard boxes, all soaked in the same accelerant as had been in the sink. Hannah could guess at what had occurred: the firesetter had quickly heaped together the plants, linked them together with the rope, then soaked them all in the jet fuel. One end of the rope had been placed in the sink. Finally, he'd dumped the rest of the fuel in the sink, turned on the water, and placed his fuse on the side of the sink. He would have had ample time to leave the basement before the fuse set off the rising fuel in the sink, and the sound of the small initial explosion had been covered by the singing above.

  Ten, fifteen minutes' work. By the time the odor of the jet fuel had wafted upward, the fire would have been raging.

  Hannah and Pete Harris were outside, to the rear of the church. The drizzle had stopped and the clouds had broken. The lowering sun touched the steeple, still standing over the roofless edifice, and threw a block of light on the wall in front of the two. A swirling path of darker black showed against the charred wood of the door, like a graffiti-scrawled name on a building: the arsonist, after setting the basement on fire, had gone to each of the entrances of the church and sprayed them with accelerant, also. When the fire climbed the walls, it found more fuel waiting for it.

  What made Hannah sick was that he'd also blocked the doors. Here, on the rear sacristy door, a metal bar ran through the ornate curved handle, across the door, and behind the mounting for a lamp. Similar bars had been used on both side entrances and on the main doors in front, though they'd been broken or burnt through eventually. As with the basement plants, no attempt had been made to even pretend this might be accidental. It was almost as if the torch were daring her to catch him.

  Whoever he was, he'd wanted those inside to die. This wasn't just a pyro, someone setting a fire just so he could watch the building burn. It wasn't one of the repeat psychos who set a fire and then scurried around trying to help the smoke-eaters put it out.

  This was someone who wanted to kill.

  "Son of a bitch," she said. "No one saw anything?"

  "We've talked to all the witnesses," Harris said. "No one's admitting it if they did. But then they're all jokers. They protect their own kind."

  "If a joker did this, I don't think they'd protect him, no matter what."

  "You don't know them, do you?" Harris answered. "I've had to do business in Jokertown before." His grimace told Hannah his opinion of the area and jokers in general. Hannah decided not to pursue it. Frankly, she didn't like what she'd seen of Jokertown herself.

  "This was planned," she said. "Did you see the bar that he put on the front door? It was sleeved, so it could be expanded to fit yet not be too bulky to carry. Our guy had this all worked out, down to the last detail. Sick."

  "This is the place for sick, if you haven't figured that out yet."

  "Yeah. So I've been told." Hannah shook her head, staring at the door. Ugly. "I'll get the photos of this. Check the other entrances again; I'll bet we'll have the same pattern under the ash."

  "You're the boss," Harris answered. Hannah decided that the tone was more tired than sarcastic.

  As Harris walked away, Hannah took her char probe from her belt, jabbed the end of the stainless steel rule into the wood, and recorded the depth of the burn. She did the same to the bottom of the door, then stepped back. She pulled her miniature tape recorder from her pocket and spoke into it. "Rear sacristy entrance. Same situation here - a plant in the basement beneath the door, accelerant sprayed on the door and surrounding structure afterward. Spray pattern on wall. Burn on door consistent with a fire communicated from below. Door barred with a steel rod - looks like one of those used in concrete work. The sacristy window is broken out from inside - that's how the priest made it out." Her head was pounding. With a sigh, she released the record button.

  Stretching, she leaned her head back, glancing up at the steeple. She thought for a moment that she saw someone up there, a figure staring down at her from one of the gargoyle-crowded ledges. She blinked and shaded her eyes against the sky-glare, but saw nothing. Just tired. You've had about three hours sleep in the last thirty-six hours.

  "You ..."

  Hannah whirled around with the word. A man, a thing was standing behind her. He was humpbacked, deformed, a lump of twisted limbs. "Jesus -" she half-shouted involuntarily, then took a deep breath. "Listen, you aren't allowed here. This is a crime scene."

  The creature took a limping step toward her. Hannah retreated. Back home, people touched by the wild card virus were almost unknown; in the few months she'd been in New York, she'd never had close contact with any of the jokers, the people altered by the virus. She found that she didn't like the experience much at all. A fear that this joker might infect her made Hannah shiver; she'd read the news stories about how one of them ran around New York unknowingly passing the virus several years ago. Almost worse, it was hard not to stare at the joker and that made her embarrassed, and she found herself covering the embarrassment with anger.

  He took another step. Again, she gave ground, wondering whether she should call for Harris.

  "Listen," she said. "I've already warned you."

  "You ..." the apparition repeated again. His mouth twitched, and he seemed to look far away before his gaze focused on her. As Hannah watched, his right arm disappeared from hand to elbow, as if it had been wiped from existence by some cosmic eraser. There was no gush of blood; the arm just popped out of existence. The joker stared at the spot where it had been as if he were as surprised as Hannah. A few seconds later, the arm reappeared. The joker prodded it with a curious forefinger, as if to make sure it was really there, then turned back to Hannah.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "but I belong here. I work here, and ... I keep seeing you," he said. "Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. Right now I
do, and I know that you will ... find out who did this." The joker's speech was ponderous, yet it wasn't as if he was slow or retarded. Rather, it seemed that he was receiving too much input, as if there was so much happening inside his head that it was difficult for him to maintain his train of thought. He seemed to be straining to remain coherent. When he did speak, the words were well-articulated, but he frowned. He seemed to be listening to interior voices, scowling as he tried to keep his mind on what he was saying.

  "You work here?" Hannah noticed now the telltale dark stains on his hands and the ash smeared into his clothing. A long fresh cut adorned his right cheek, the blood dried to a brown scab. Hannah remembered the reports of the first firefighters on the scene. "You're the one who pulled the priest out, aren't you? The one called Quasiman."

  The being nodded, almost shyly, and gave her a fleeting, apologetic smile. "I did?" he answered, as if surprised. "Maybe .. I think I might remember ..."

  "You were lucky."

  "No joker's exactly ... lucky." Again, that shy, quiet smile. There was an openness to the man, an odd friendliness belied by his deformed appearance and the strength evident in the knotted muscles of those arms and legs. Hannah waited for him to say something more, but for several seconds, Quasiman simply stared up at the steeple, as if he were standing there alone.

  "Hey!" Hannah said. The ugly creature looked at her and blinked as if he were seeing her for the first time. "I need to talk with you about the fire. Something you saw, something you heard, may give us a lead on who did this."

  Quasiman suddenly looked grim and dangerous. "We'll find them," he said. "I saw us, you and me. There's more of them than you think ..." He stopped again, his gaze losing its focus.

  "Them?" Hannah said. "Did you see something? Was there more than one firesetter?"

  Quasiman didn't answer. He continued to stare past her at the burnt shell of the church, as if looking for answers in the charred ruin. Hannah shuddered - looking at the joker repulsed her, and he seemed half insane.

  "Hannah! The chief sent over some pizza - what's say we take a break?" Harris called from the side of the church. She turned, relieved and a little angry with herself for what she'd been thinking. "Half a second," she shouted, then looked back to the joker. "I'll need -"

  She stopped. Quasiman was gone. Vanished.

  ***

  "It's after eleven. You're keeping later hours than me. That's not fair - lawyers are supposed to be the overworked ones."

  Hannah threw her coat and briefcase in the general direction of the rack, then closed the apartment door behind her. She unclasped the clip holding her hair and ran her fingers through the long, unbound strands. She heaved a long sigh. "No kidding," she said. "That was the Jokertown church fire Malcolm threw my way last night. What a mess. The Reds still playing?"

  Hannah's roommate, David Adderley, glanced up from the television, where the Brooklyn Dodgers were staging a late rally against the Cincinnati Reds. He set a bottle of Anchor Steam down on the coffee table next to the white cardboard container of Chinese food and came over to hug Hannah. "Sony to hear that, kid. And no, they're not still playing. I had the timer set on the video, since I figured you'd want to see it: ol' thoughtful me. You're not going to be happy, though - the Dodgers win in the bottom of the ninth: so much for the Reds' one game lead. So why'd you get the freaks' fire?"

  David didn't seem to be any more bigoted toward jokers than the rest of the people she'd met in New York; in fact, he'd worked a few cases for the city for joker causes. He wasn't one of the rabid fanatics, the ones who wanted to sterilize them all or worse, but he didn't hide his distaste. Normally she wouldn't have noticed or remarked on the "freaks" comment; tonight, the word made her knot her jaws. She'd seen the bodies of parents huddled over their dead children as if shielding them from the flames; she'd seen the desperate piles at the doors. No one deserves to die like that. No one. "Probably because no one else wants it."

  "There's going to be some who think that the guy should probably get a medal for community service." David tried to soften the comment with a laugh.

  "David -"

  Releasing her, he held out his hands in apology. "Sorry. But you know that's how some people are going to feel. Hell, three years ago Manhattan was a war zone during the Rox crisis until the Turtle smashed Bloat and his damn fairyland to the bottom of the bay. How many bills have been introduced for mandatory blood tests since then -"

  "Listen, I saw how ugly it is in Jokertown today," Hannah interrupted. "Believe me, it's worse than I ever thought. But ..." Hannah shivered, remembering the death she'd seen. "It's not their fault. None of them asked to be jokers."

  On the TV, the camera was panning the crowd, picking out notables in the field seats. Hannah recognized ex-Senator Gregg Hartmann, sitting alongside a woman whose skin might have been made from crumpled tinfoil. The commentator was sayipg something about Hartmann's efforts to achieve equality for all those afflicted by the wild card." David pointed at him.

  "It's bleeding hearts like him who have been the problem," David said to the screen, then glanced back at Hannah. "I'm sorry as anyone that these people were infected by the damn virus. None of them asked for it, sure, and probably none of them deserve the pain and disfigurement, but it happened. The best thing we can do is to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. You've been here less than three months, Hannah. You don't know New York and you don't know jokers. I'm not the only one who feels that way. Ask any of our friends. Unfortunately, you get misguided people who think the answer is killing them all, like whoever torched your church. Talk to some of our friends -"

  "Your friends, David. Not our friends. I just adopted them. I'm still 'that new woman David's living with,' to them." She wasn't sure why she said that - until she spoke, she hadn't even known that the fact bothered her. She regretted the words instantly. David gave her his hurt puppy-dog look, his I'm-not-the-one-to-blame look, his why-can't-you-argue-logically look.

  "Hannah, I didn't drag you out here. You wanted to come. You wanted to be with me, remember? I found you the job you wanted, pulled a few strings to get it for you -"

  "Yes, David. I remember." Hannah realized that they had shifted from the muddy waters of wild card bigotry into the more familiar shallows of The Argument, the minor skirmishes in their relationship that seemed to taint their time together more and more often. You shouldn't have come to New York this way. You should have waited, should have continued the long-distance romance, the weekend visits. Then you would have been sure. This is your fault - you feel guilty because you're afraid that if David wasn't friends with the Mayor and half the Council you wouldn't even have been considered for your job. You feel guilty because you're not sure you like New York that much, because while David's a nice guy somewhere in the last month the spark and heat and light went away and you were living with someone you really didn't know all that well ...

  "David, I appreciate all that. I do. It's just -"

  "Just what, Hannah?" He sounded more annoyed than concerned now. "You want off this stupid fire, well, I can understand that. Malcolm's just pissed that I forced his boss to hire you. You don't want to deal with jokers; well, I'm not particularly comfortable with you prowling around in J-Town, either. I'll call Malcolm tomorrow."

  "David -" Hannah began, wondering how he could be so blind as to say exactly the wrong thing. Don't you understand? You pulled the strings and they all resent it. I can sympathize with that. I'm finding lately that I'm beginning to resent it too. I hate that it's Jokertown. I hate that jokers are involved, but this one's mine and I need to show them that I'm competent. I should never have let you find me the job. I should have come to New York on my own, found my own place, found my own work instead of letting you arrange everything for me. But I was in love with you, and you were so convincing. ...

  But Hannah didn't say any of that. She tried to deflect the argument. "I don't want you to call Malcolm, David. Thanks, but I can handle this. This is going to
be big news, even if it is in Jokertown. It'll be good for me." David shrugged at that; she knew he would. A city attorney with political aspirations understood power, after all. He understood publicity and career moves. Hannah took David's arm and pulled him down on the couch, snuggling next to him. "Listen, I don't want to argue. I'm tired and beat and I'm saying things I don't really mean. I still smell like the inside of a chimney. I want to hug, cuddle a little, then take another shower and go to bed."

  "To bed?"

  "Yeah," she said. "I'm not too tired, if you're not."

  The lines of David's thin face slowly softened.

  "I love you," Hannah said.

  ***

  "You don't mind, then, if I record this?"

  "Not at all, Ms. Davis. Go ahead. Please, I want to help you in any way I can."

  Hannah set the tape recorder down on the tray stand next to Father Squid's hospital bed. She checked the record light. "Recording started on September 17, 1993, at 8:17 A.M.," she said and stepped back again. The priest watched her with something close to amusement in his watery green eyes. The oxygen tubing ran through the wriggling mass of tentacles that were his nose. His skin was a pale gray. He greeted her with a fleeting, almost sad smile. There was webbing between his long fingers and round vestigial suckers on his palms, and when he spoke, the scent wafting from him reminded Hannah of vacations in North Carolina, wandering through the tidal pools along the beach. Behind him, monitors ticked and whirred.

  "I want you to know that we're talking to all survivors and witnesses, Mr. ... ummmm ..." Hannah stopped. Her Catholic upbringing made it seem heretical to call him "Father."

  "Father Squid, is what most people call me," he said, and there was amusement under that voice. "Even those who aren't of my church. If you're not comfortable with that, I understand."

  Hannah shrugged as if she didn't care. She didn't think the gesture convinced either of them. "Father, then," she said.

  Father Squid coughed suddenly, sending the scent of tidal brine through the room. He wiped his mouth with a tissue. Hannah watched the tentacles wriggling around his fingers as he did so. "I'm sorry," he said afterward. "The smoke in the lungs ... Tell me one thing, Ms. Davis - will you catch him?"